The Wayland girls’ varsity bowling team finished seventh among 20 teams and advanced to the qualifying round Saturday while the boys’ squad continued to improve taking 16th place.
The Lady Wildcats, competing in the Cedar Springs Invitational after the Christmas break, were short a few starters because of injuries and holiday vacations, yet still qualified for the rolloffs.
“The girls bowled well as a team, as their Baker games boosted them to the qualifying round,” coach Eric Bottrall said.
As seventh seed, the girls had to face the second seed team of the day. They won the first game in match play by eight pins, but then the bottom fell out which ended their day.
The ladies were led by Bella Harnish and Kadence Bottrall.
“Lilly Gates turned in a solid performance today,” Bottrall said. “Senior Brooke Bixler is working on a new release.”
The boys showed some personal improvement again at the tournament, held at Fairlanes in Grandville.
“Even though we haven’t moved up in the standings, we are showing great first ball improvement,” said coach Sherry Miklusicak. “We are now fairly consistently hitting the head pin. The next focus is to consistently hit the ‘pocket while cutting down on Brooklyn’ shots.
“We also need to improve our single pin spare shooting. Those are some good things, as when the year began, we weren’t even hitting the pocket.
“This is a great group of boys who help each other out quite a bit with advice. They all respect each other, which is a quality that can be hard to find.”
Both teams will travel to Hastings to take on a tough Thornapple-Kellogg squad Monday.